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dilation
A big one of those changes starts when labor begins, shortly after the contractions start: cervical dilation.
The cervix has to open up so the baby can leave the uterus and enter the birth canal. Over the course of this process, called cervical dilation, it can stretch to 10 centimeters (or more)!
10 centimeters might be hard to visualize, so Santa Clarita's SCV Birth Center shared a photo of a baby's head fitting into a dilation board—a tool used to help birth specialists learn what each centimeter of dilation feels like.
Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to predict how long labor will last, or any set rule for how long it will take the cervix to fully dilate.
Sometimes labor can last for multiple days!
SCV Birth Center's photo soon went viral, and garnered a lot of attention.
Soon after, Steffanie Christi'an shared the photo with the caption:
"This is what 10cm of dilation looks like. This is why we deserve all the things."
Some agreed with Steffanie and chimed in with their own wants and needs.
Joanna Shroeder/Facebook
Others were a bit more leery of childbirth after seeing the photo.
Emily Rivera/Facebook
One person couldn't resist the obvious joke.
A few commenters noted that 10 isn't always the magic number—sometimes babies have awfully big heads.
This just goes to show that anyone who gives birth goes through a heck of a lot of changes, and they totally deserve that extra donut/candy bar/cuddle time if they want it.